Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE, FRCPwas a British neurologist, naturalist and author who spent his professional life in the United States. He believed that the brain is the "most incredible thing in the universe" and therefore important to study. He became widely known for writing best-selling case histories about his patients' disorders, with some of his books adapted for stage and film...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth9 July 1933
nice blessed heart
If we have youth, beauty, blessed gifts, strength, if we find fame, fortune, favor, fulfillment, it is easy to be nice, to turn a warm heart to the world.
children stories demand
Very young children love and demand stories, and can understand complex matters presented as stories, when their powers of comprehending general concepts, paradigms, are almost nonexistent.
monday zoos first-love
My own first love was biology. I spent a great part of my adolescence in the Natural History museum in London (and I still go to the Botanic Garden almost every day, and to the Zoo every Monday). The sense of diversity of the wonder of innumerable forms of life has always thrilled me beyond anything else.
passion thinking musical
I think the brain is a dynamic system in which some parts control or suppress other parts. And if perhaps one has damage in one of the controlling or suppressing areas, then you may have the emergence or eruption of something, whether it is a seizure, a criminal trait - - or even a sudden musical passion.
life stories existence
We have, each of us, a life story, whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives.
drama men self
To be ourselves we must have ourselves – possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories. We must “recollect” ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative, of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.
dream reality waking
Waking consciousness is dreaming – but dreaming constrained by external reality
perspective focus feels
I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential.
almost-over life-is realizing
I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over.
way i-can productive
I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can
social bonding cement
Music has a bonding power, it's primal social cement
creativity mind depth
Creativity involves the depth of a mind, and many, many depths of unconsciousness.
musical being-human music-is
Music is part of being human.
dying faces face-to-face
I am now face to face with dying. But I am not finished with living.